


The World is on Fire

by sindubu



Category: Red Velvet (K-pop Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-28
Updated: 2016-09-28
Packaged: 2018-08-18 08:09:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8155178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sindubu/pseuds/sindubu
Summary: “Memento mori,” Taeyeon claps a hand against Irene’s shoulder.“Memento mori,” Irene echoes.   Remember that you will die.





	

**Author's Note:**

> at this point "i have no idea what i'm doing" should be a disclaimer every time i post something that isn't a standard one shot because... i have no idea what i'm doing.

She’s bored, you know.

“Ten!”

She spreads her arms out at her sides, letting the wind play with the material of her jacket. She sighs. 

“... Nine... Eight!”

Dusty combat boots crunch against cracked asphalt. She has to keep moving.

“Five... Four…”

The girl squints at the setting sun along the tree line up ahead. Blood orange lingers against the sky, but it’ll be dark soon enough.

“Three.”

She spins on her heel, unscrewing the cap of the jug of gasoline. Cola colored liquid wets the cement as she walks backwards now.

“Two.”

Her shoes kick, spraying against the snarls staggering toward her - eyes unseeing, mouth agape, grey tinged flesh reaching. She smiles.

“One.”

The jug falls at her feet and she stops, meters against the puddle she's created.

She reaches into her front pocket.

“Ready or not, here I come!”

The match is hot against her fingertips as she tosses it forward, a sudden blaze lighting a path and engulfing the swarm in flame. 

Joy whistles. It’s time to go home now.

“I won!”

 

 

 

 

“You’re late, did you run into trouble?”

Joy swings a leg over the bench, shooting the girl a grateful look when she passes an already made bowl of soup her way.

“I was just following protocol,” she replies, beginning to spoon bits of carrot and potato in her mouth as quickly as possible. Wendy kicks her lightly under the table and Joy remembers a thing called chewing. “If it were up to me, I would’ve just lit them up at Dead Man’s Creek.”

“You know that’s too close to us,” Wendy frowns.

“And stupid,” Krystal reprimands from a little further down the table, looking up at the two of them with a piercing stare. “Seulgi didn’t map out safe parameters for you without reason, Joy.”

The youngest girl holds back the eye roll threatening to make them permanently lodged in the back of her head. Her mother used to tell her, too - _Sooyoung, that’s not ladylike._ Her mother used to tell her a lot of things, to be fair.

“Neither of you would know fun if it bit you. Literally. In the face.” Joy points her utensil at one and then the other, before scooping another spoonful. “Speaking of Seulgi, where is she?”

Wendy looks torn between telling her to speak after swallowing her food, and something else that causes creases to line at the edges of her eyes with worry.

“She’s not back yet?” she looks back and forth between the two, every bone in her spine stiffening. She wouldn’t - doesn’t, question Seulgi’s ability to handle herself for a second, but to be alone possibly _overnight -_

“She’s taken longer scouting missions before,” says Krystal, seeming unfazed as she bends over her bowl to continue eating. Joy’s fingers flex at her sides with an itch to wipe the indifferent look off her face.

 _Easy enough for her to say,_ Joy thinks with a scowl. Wendy murmurs something under her breath, something soft, something that sounds like _“let it go,”_ but it’s been a long day and no one has ever said her temper was among the best of them.

Krystal doesn’t look up. “She had to go, it’s been two weeks since anyone’s done a sweep of the area,” she pauses. “If you have a problem, take it up with her when she gets back. She volunteered.”

Joy pushes herself upright, palms flat against the table, when a voice interrupts them. 

“Don’t think about it, Park. And you,” Jessica paces up to the group, eyes landing on her younger sister with the quirk of a brow, “stop pretending you don’t have feelings or I won’t raise a finger if you get knocked on your ass one of these days.”

There’s an “as if,” mumbled in reply, but Jessica throws her a look that all but begs her to speak louder if she dares. The girl quiets then, leaving with a half assed excuse of washing her dish in the kitchens. Joy watches her as she goes until she’s out of her line of sight, and Jessica watches them both.

“I can’t ask you to be more patient than you already are, because I’ve wanted to drag her outside by her hair a few times myself,” Jessica offers with a grim look.

“She’s still grieving Luna,” Wendy interjects softly, eyes warm and filled with sympathy, “it’s only been a month.”

Jessica pinches the bridge of her nose. “I figured as much,” she concedes, trying to ward off an impending headache. “She’s been taking her old watch posts in the middle of the night, the shifts Suho took over after... Her bed is almost always empty when I check.”

“It’s a shitty excuse,” mumbles Joy, though there’s less heat to her words now. She glances at Jessica with newfound interest. “But hey, I wasn’t yelling before you stepped in. Did you need something? A report on the herd?”

The woman shakes her head, allowing herself a tired laugh. “Oh, no, I can see how well you did from post. Good call on the fire. The wind is blowing east so the smoke is a nice cover.” She hums in appreciation, gaze wandering elsewhere. “I actually needed to borrow someone.”

 

 

 

 

 

Yeri almost misses school.

Not going herself - of course not - but the fact it existed once upon a time. And day jobs. At least then, she never had her older sisters fussing over her the way they do now. They were too busy back then making a living. Now, Yeri supposes, they’re all busy trying to live. 

“How is she?” 

“Not any better than the last time you checked,” Yeri retorts before her caretaker can, watching as Taeyeon steps into the tent to get a closer look. “Five minutes ago.”

“Her fever hasn’t gotten any worse,” Kai replies, dipping his hands into the wash bucket and wringing out a towel, “but it hasn’t gotten any better, either.”

Taeyeon takes a knee down beside him, pushing the damp hair away from the young girl’s forehead. Yeri jokes, but her skin is pale and tinged with sweat. She shivers and can’t hide the motion well enough. Her sister tracks the movement with a frown.

“So when are we heading out?” Yeri tries to distract her. 

It doesn’t work. “Until you can stand on two feet without looking like you’re going to pass out.”

This time, it’s Yeri who frowns. “We’ve been camped out here for three days now,” she says, as though that says enough, and it’s not a lie: all their rules are fairly simple. One of them is not staying in the same place for too long. 

It lies on the presumption a place could be safe anymore, and the world they live in has taken the meaning back, changed it so safe is a temporary condition and not a permanent state. 

“We can build a stretcher if we have to,” Taeyeon answers without missing a beat, “Minho can do most of the work.”

 _“I heard that,”_ a voice carries from outside the tent, and Yeri snorts. Where Taeyeon is, Minho is usually nearby. A long time ago, Yeri knows, he was just their neighbor down the street, a friend of her oldest sister and a teasing older brother figure to her and Irene. 

“Well, you can’t make me do it,” Kai cuts in with an easy smile. He places the cooled down cloth against her forehead and meets her eyes with a knowing look. “I’m just here to be a pretty face.”

Yeri tries to roll her eyes but they feel too stiff and heavy to. She can only watch as Kai turns his head to share a look with Taeyeon that she suspects isn’t one in her favor. Kai is doing his best, but despite all their searching they’ve yet to turn up anything useful and it’s not his fault her body has decided to make things difficult - not just for her, but for all of them.

“Are Irene and Sulli back from their run yet?” she asks instead, swallowing back guilt with a dry throat and aching head. Just as she finishes the question, there’s a tap against the tent - Yeri recognizes the sound of Minho’s knuckles brushing against the tarp.

_“Taeyeon, you’re going to want to see this.”_

 

 

 

 

“We have supplies.”

“I say we just kill her,” Sulli swings the machete in her hand upwards, resting the handle against a shoulder. “We found her a mile from camp. Lost a buck we were tracking just to catch her.” She frowns at the dark haired girl staring imploringly up at Minho and Taeyeon, wrists bound behind her back with rope.

Taeyeon lifts her eyes to Irene, who shrugs.

“We did lose dinner,” she admits. 

“But,” presses Taeyeon, noticing the sword she owns tucked safely into its scabbard against her back. There was a reason she was kept alive.

She jerks her head against the treeline. “That smoke? Handiwork of a friend, apparently,” Irene glances down at the captive, “Seulgi here says it’s routine procedure when swarms get a little too close to their _community.”_

Taeyeon’s eyes snap back toward the girl. “How many strong?”

The girl named Seulgi hesitates. “Two dozen,” she answers, then, “but we’re expecting more.”

“More?” She lifts a brow.

“We’re a peaceful group,” Seulgi implores, “We write messages on road signs. We welcome new settlers as long as they uphold our rule.”

Taeyeon can feel four sets of eyes on her alone. She presses further. “What rule?”

“We don’t kill the living.” 

“I change my mind,” Irene cuts in, expression flat and uninterested, “I should have let Sulli kill her. Her group is going to die anyway.”

Seulgi shakes her head when as if on cue, the other girl swings her machete down, digging into the soft earth with a _thump_ behind her. The blade whistles through the air as Sulli raises it once more.

“We have food and even medicine,” Seulgi tries, “We even have a doctor.”

In a flash, Irene has an iron clad grip against Sulli’s wrist, lowering it down to her side for her. She meets Taeyeon’s nod and speaks first. “A doctor?”

“She’s worked miracles before on some of our injured,” answers Seulgi, unable to look behind and settling for focusing on the two in front instead - Minho and Taeyeon. “Please. You’ve taken my bow and you’ve taken my equipment, I have nothing to gain by helping you.”

“Other than your life,” Sulli scowls. Seulgi ignores her, continuing.

“You can take the map in my rucksack and _try_ to find my community on your own to rob, or kill, or worse. Or I can take you there myself the fast way and we can work out some kind of deal. Please,” Seulgi trains her gaze onto Taeyeon, unflinching. “I want to help. This is who we are as humans. This is who we still have to be.”

Minho breaks the silence first. “What’s the call, Taeyeon?”

 

 

 

 

It’s enough of a routine by now that Wendy doesn’t so much as bat an eyelash when her fingers press down against torn skin, blood seeping out and onto her hands as she presses down.

“If I’m allowed to say so, I wish you’d take it easy on the melee training,” she looks over with a slight frown at Jessica, who’s gritting her teeth as a bead of sweat lines her forehead. 

Jessica swears under her breath as Wendy dips a cotton ball into rubbing alcohol. She nods when she’s ready, hissing at the pain that flares against her side. The boy she’s training for guard post is better with a knife than she’d thought.

“We have something good here, Wendy,” says Jessica, watching as the younger girl opens a med kit after cleaning the wound thoroughly. “Do I need stitches?”

“No.”

“Then I don’t need a bandage.”

Wendy hesitates. “What you said,” she lifts her gaze to look at her leader - the community’s, “you’re not wrong. But what we’ve built here isn’t worth dying for. We can do it again if we had to.”

That’s where Jessica shakes her head, a grim smile on her lips.

“We’re all dying, Wendy.”

 

 

 

 

Her throat feels like sandpaper.

“Oh, good, you’re up,” Joy smiles at her from the doorway, finishing up tying the laces of her boots, “I read the calendar wrong, I don’t have watch until tonight. I was going to wake you just now, anyway. You don’t normally sleep in so much.”

“Suho,” Wendy rasps out, rubbing her eyes as she sits up, “hurt himself last night. Thought he saw someone, but it was just a walker. Tripped coming down the watch tower and sprained his ankle.”

“I tell you, I feel real safe knowing that guy’s around.”

Wendy chuckles at the younger girl’s deadpan expression. Being roused from her sleep in the middle of the night to tape his ankle wasn’t the highlight of her rest, that was certain. “Be nice,” she admonishes gently, glancing over at her table side, “Hey, we still have filled water bottles?”

Joy shakes her head. “Fresh out,” she frowns, “Gotta pump more at the well later. Actually, we can stop ourselves on the way back. No need to wait for whoever’s responsible for handing out water this week.”

“As much as I like the initiative,” Wendy pauses, taking careful consideration of her hopeful look with a sense of heightened wariness, “what do you mean ‘on the way back?’”

The taller girl bounces on the balls of her feet, looking angelic for all her liveliness gives her away. Joy doesn’t even look like the type who would carry supplies for molotovs on her at all times. 

Wendy begins to change out of her pajamas and into a fresh set of clothes in front of her, both of them unaffected. She hasn’t had her own room since she came to the community - changing in front of another person, changing in front of Joy, was hardly a reason to be shy.

“It’s today, Wendy,” announces Joy, as though it’s written on the community work calendar on the bulletin board, the one used by civilians without a specialty like her or Joy. Wendy’s pretty sure if she had one, all hers would say is _infirmary shift,_ every day. “It’s time you learned to fight.”

She buttons the last sleeve of her blouse, fixing her collar in the small mirror on her dresser. Joy doesn’t need to see her to know she’d rolled her eyes before she’d even finished her sentence.

“Pass.”

“Wendy - ” 

“I’m pretty sure,” she speaks over the girl, turning around and throwing her an exasperated look, “I would be the last person on the battlefront, considering I’d be needed to stitch you idiots up.”

“Okay, first of all, ouch,” Joy holds a hand over her heart, “Second of all, I’ve seen Seulgi hit a target from _at least_ forty feet, so - ”

They’re interrupted by a blood curling scream that rings across the room even coming from outside, and despite her excitement earlier, Joy narrows her eyes at Wendy, picking her backpack off the floor and already rushing down the hall. “Stay here!”

“That’s Lay!” Wendy recognizes as she steps out, too, watching her dart into her room and return a second later with her favorite bat. She’d called the other girl scary after she’d stuck nails onto the end, but she feels safe, too, knowing it’s to protect her and everyone else. “He could be hurt.”

“And so could you,” she says while rushing, not bothering to look back until the knob to the front door begins to twist. She shoots a look over a shoulder that distinctly says _stay back,_ raising her bat into a swinging position.

The door flies open, and behind it, Krystal holds a set of keys. Joy lowers her bat. The master key for the town is Jessica’s.

“We need you,” Krystal cuts straight to the point, hesitating briefly as her eyes land on Wendy. “Both of you.”

 

 

 

 

“P-please don’t kill me.”

“Relax,” Taeyeon consoles the dark haired boy currently with his back against Minho’s chest, a broad forearm pressed against his windpipe. She knows from how much pressure he’s exerting, it’s uncomfortable but not unbearably so. If he can still speak, she thinks, he’s being considerate. “We just needed extra insurance. Lay, was it?”

The long haired brunette who had introduced herself as Jessica levels an impressive stare at her. As for Taeyeon, she definitely has the poker face down, Jessica thinks, her and the kid with the sword behind her. 

The kid, Jessica notes, that has her sword drawn but kept at her side and not pointed at Seulgi. 

Seulgi. Her eyes soften when she meets the younger girl’s gaze. She’s watched Seulgi grow up - in the old world, in the new world. She’d been Krystal’s playmate in school for years. 

“You have it,” Jessica speaks, quiet but full of power. The leader. Taeyeon had known it the second they approached the perimeter of the community after seizing Lay, when she and the other girl had come down, guns blazing. When Jessica had holstered her weapon first and invited them inside their walls.

“We asked for your doctor,” Sulli snarls as Krystal returns with two other girls flanked at her sides. “It’s a little suspicious if you have not one, but two.”

Jessica glances briefly behind her, before gesturing the three forward. They settle into a neat line beside her, facing against their new company.

“Well, you don’t have to be,” she answers calmly, inclining her head toward the new duo. “This is Wendy, our medic, and the charming young woman with the bat is Joy.”

As poised as Jessica looks, Wendy can’t say she feels the same. Her eyes dart from Lay to Seulgi - Seulgi, who stares ahead and won’t look in their direction. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Joy’s grip tighten on her bat.

“Hello,” she bows in greeting, nervous. The girl with the machete scoffs.

“What is this?” Sulli looks her in the eyes head on, unyielding. “She’s too young to be a doctor. If this is a joke - ”

“Quiet,” the one next to her snaps, the first time she’s spoken. Her features are defined, her jaw angular and sharp as though carved from marble. 

“Irene - ”

“I said,” Irene, Wendy knows now, retorts. Beautiful even in anger. She addresses her next. 

“You,” she starts. “You can treat others?”

Wendy stammers. “W-well, yes,” she answers, her tongue clumsy as she chances a glance toward her side. Jessica’s eyes flick toward her boots, then toward the sky in a tiny nod. “I can treat open wounds - we have antibiotics for infection - burn wounds, other lesions - ”

The smallest one of the group holds up a hand and Wendy falls silent. She looks back and forth from her and Jessica.

“And illnesses?” Taeyeon asks, “Fevers, cold sweats, chronic coughing?”

“I’d - I’d have to take a look, but of course,” Wendy focuses on her, anxiety pooling in her stomach. The townspeople have all either run inside their homes or remain standing where they are, all of them watching. The attention on her in particular is unnerving. Her eyes jump over the four of them. “You all look - you all look healthy, though.”

Taeyeon pauses. “We have two more back at camp,” she offers neutrally. “One of which needs medical attention.”

Jessica lifts her chin. “So bring them here,” she lifts an eyebrow, inclining her head toward Lay and Seulgi. “None of this was necessary. Your friend is probably just dehydrated. We can fix that and more.”

“You have fresh water?” Irene looks past them and around the town.

“Yes, we - ” 

“You didn’t tell them about the creek?” Krystal interrupts her sister, looking at Seulgi instead.

“I led them around,” Seulgi replies, short and simple.

“We saw it on the map,” Irene pauses, shifting. Looking more closely, Wendy can see the strap of Seulgi’s bag on the opposite shoulder of her scabbard. “We would’ve found it on our own eventually.”

“You wouldn’t want to,” Jessica informs, addressing them at large. Her eyes wander up and down the group, pausing on their weapons and then finally, Taeyeon. “It’s filled with walkers.” She pauses to let the words sink in before continuing. “There’s an man-made dam from the old world that cuts it off from a lake further away. It’s where we draw our water from. If you go to Dead Man’s Creek… well, as the name suggests.”

Jessica doesn’t blink when she adds: “It’s a bit of a hassle, checking to make sure the infected haven’t infiltrated the supply. Which is why you’ll help us clear the creek bed so we can get the channel running with the lake water again.”

“Excuse me?” Taeyeon steps forward now, hand leaning against the dagger attached to her belt. She positions herself between Lay and Seulgi. “I don’t think you’re in a position to be giving orders.”

“Actually,” Jessica tilts her head, “I think I am.”

Taeyeon almost smiles, the shadow of one at the edges of her lips. She nods toward Krystal and Joy, the two who’ve looked the most murderous from the start of their confrontation. “Assuming these are your best,” she edges, “I could kill all four of you with one hand, by myself.”

She gets a shrug in response, and then Jessica says:

“Maybe. But we have an armory. Now, you don’t know if it’s enough to shoot one of you down or sixty, but I wouldn’t take my chances. Not when you came all the way out here for a reason,” Jessica shakes her head, voice as pleasant as poison, “didn’t you?”

And Wendy watches Taeyeon falter - not just her, but all of them, and she wonders who is it back at camp that is sick enough to consider. The leader of their group is silent, but not for long.

“Minho. Sulli,” she jerks her head, and the man releases Lay, who stumbles forward as the girl named Sulli pulls out a pocketknife to cut Seulgi’s restraints off. A moment later, Seulgi is free, too, meeting Joy first and wrapping an arm around her. Taeyeon doesn’t seem to be finished, however, and she looks over at the second girl, at Irene, and nods.

“Irene will take your doctor to retrieve the last two of our group. We’ll stay behind as a show of trust,” Taeyeon bridges the distance between herself and Jessica, offering a hand. The back of her hand is brown with dried blood, Wendy notices.

“Jessica,” Krystal murmurs, a quiet dissent, but Jessica looks past her at Wendy. She glances over at Joy and Seulgi before looking back and nodding once. Okay.

Jessica meets Taeyeon, clasping her hand and shaking it. 

“You have yourself a deal,” Jessica declares.

Okay, Wendy thinks.


End file.
